


Carbon Kid

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, No Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-27
Updated: 2003-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Better to deny a failure than to face. Yeah, so this is about Brian





	Carbon Kid

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

"Image image you do what you want   
You're a carbon kid with a sinister diagram"  
-Placebo, Carbon Kid

It's Saturday, 11:43 P.M. and Brian is removing a pack of matches from the miscellaneous drawer in his kitchen.

'Lucky,' he thought, 'that they're still here.'

Not being a matches man, Brian usually didn't keep them in the loft. Jack Kinney had always kept matches around, his son preferred lighters. That could just be a coincidence.

Either way, Brian's lighter was out of juice and he had been searching for something that could spark a flame. 

Something he owned needed to be burned.

He walked past the kitchen counter, not even glancing at the pack of cigarettes that lay upon it. Usually that was what he needed a flame for. Not this time.

As he climbed the steps to his bedroom, Brian thought of the day that said soon-to-be-burning item came into his life. 

Justin's art show at the Gay and Lesbian Center seemed like forever ago. The day was blurry and faded in his memory. He can hardly remember why he had bought the sketch of himself. What had driven him to do it? 

It could have been vanity, but why buy the drawing for a hundred dollars when he had mirrors at home? It may have been modesty. After all, he was naked in that picture. But no one had ever accused Brian Kinney of modesty and besides that, who the hell hasn't seen him naked? Honestly, anyone who was unlucky enough to knock on his door at the wrong time of morning (*cough* noon) got an eye-full of the family jewels. Maybe Brian had wanted Justin to think there was someone out there who appreciated his sketch? Maybe such a person had bought that sketch regardless?

It's a mystery. Faded and damn-near forgotten. Or at least it will be soon.

Brian took the final steps to his closet where, concealed carefully behind the sweaters and winter coats that are found in every closet in Pittsburgh, there was a framed picture.

He pulled it from it's hiding place. Careful not to turn it over (don't want to face what we're destroying yet), Brian sat down on his bed to remove the paper gently from it's display case.

This task was done mindlessly. Brian was not thinking about his actions. He wore only a towel, for he had just exited the shower moments ago. One of those intensely hot, burn one layer of skin off, limbs dyed red from the heat kind of showers. When Brian had decided to do this thing was unclear. And yet it was being done.

Making sure the paper did not get any moisture on it, he flipped it over.

It was not changed. It was not different. It wasn't even that significant. What had been so special about this drawing?

He didn't take too long in unraveling these questions, didn't attempt to demystify the events or emotions of that random day over a year and a half ago. Brian simply set down the picture, lit a match and picked the paper up once more.

He would throw the frame out the window, he would drop the old pack of matches into the garbage disposal, he wouldn't think of these things again.

And as he watches the paper catch fire, as he witnessed the destruction of something that can never be recreated or replaced, he lets the images of history repeating itself and the notions of 'like father, like son' pass into oblivion. 

Brian Kinney is the carbon-copy of no one. And the ashes that he creates do not fall at his feet.


End file.
